Internship Overview: Join the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA), the Sustainable Business Network (SBN) of MA, and Cambridge Local First (CLF) for a 13-week spring internship on bolstering resilient local economies. The internship will last from Monday, February 1 through Friday, April 30.
We are seeking a cohort of highly motivated, self-directed, spring interns to work with us on our public policy and advocacy, business assistance, and public education work. The interns must have strong organizational, communication and research skills, and have a passion for sustainable economy and public policies.
Organizational overviews:
- The American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA) is a non-profit organization providing a wide array of tools, templates and support for independent business owners and advocates. AMIBA helps businesses and organizations implement buy local campaigns; organize group purchasing, marketing and other collaborative work; and advance policies that support community-rooted businesses rather than absentee-owned corporations. AMIBA builds a strong Local Economy Movement by supporting the growth and development of local business alliances.
- The Sustainable Business Network (SBN) of Massachusetts engages business and community leaders in building economies that are local, green and fair. SBN envisions a resilient world economy composed of thousands of inter-connected local economies that benefit the lives of all people and all living things. SBN endeavors to build a successful model in Massachusetts and New England that inspires others to join with SBN in growing the sustainable economy movement.
- Cambridge Local First (CLF) is a non-profit network of 400+ local and independent businesses here in Cambridge. Our mission is to support, promote, and celebrate a “local economy community” by educating the public and government about the significant environmental, economic, and cultural benefits of a strong local economy. In accordance with our three-pronged value proposition, our ongoing efforts center on small business assistance, education to the public, and advocacy. We are part of a network of independent business associations (IBAs) around the country, working to amplify local economies in our respective regions.
Internship description:
- The interns will spend 13 weeks this spring, during the period of Monday, February 1 through Friday, April 30, working across the three organizations — AMIBA, SBN, and CLF — in relatively equal measure.
- The interns will have individual project responsibilities, which may include, but are not limited to the items below. Internship organizers will work with interns to identify projects that best match their interests:
- AMIBA:
- Interview independent business alliance executive directors across the U.S.
- Conduct independent research and produce draft white papers on issues including policy and nonprofit organization management.
- Update small business toolkits and resources.
- Assist with membership outreach and membership annual reviews.
- Maintain technical platforms that support existing programming and services to IBAs.
- SBN:
- Support the Cambridge-Somerville Black Business Network (CSBBN). Check out our first newsletter that our interns helped to design.
- The CSBBN is a recently developed network that aims to bring together Black entrepreneurs and identify specific programs that can be developed or adopted that will help ensure that we survive the pandemic and thrive moving forward. This new initiative will bring together and work with Black-owned businesses based in Cambridge and Somerville that are in at least one of these phases: (1) Start-Up (2) Expansion (3) Recovery from the COVID-19 Pandemic. Duties include playing a leadership role in our research, including conducting interviews with program partners, surveys with Black businesses, support in launching a Cambridge Fund for investing and/or building capacity in Black and Brown businesses. Support our communications with social media postings, website update and maintenance, creating newsletters, taking notes and archiving, Steering Committee and Network meeting support. Organizing workshops for CSBBN members. Support SBN’s Boston Local Food Program, including SBN’s Virtual Local Food Trade Show (10th year) and Value-Added Products Research Pilot project by managing social media posts of our food vendors, distributing surveys, analyzing surveys, participating in focus groups administration.
- CLF:
- Interview business owners for our channel on Cambridge local television.
- Write news articles for our local newspaper, Cambridge Day, on the significance of local businesses and/or the local economy movement. These can include interviews with local businesses. The Cambridge Day editor will mentor these interns.
- Offer direct services to Cambridge local businesses, such as website support.
- Manage our three data visualizations, powered by OpenDataSoft (Cambridge-wide, Massachusetts-wide, and Black-owned businesses).
- Manage our website. This can include creating an intern page, updating news articles, and adding calendar events.
- Identify and apply to grants.
- Manage our social media accounts, which have a 20,000-person following. These are Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
- Generate a weekly community newsletter.
- Bolster Cambridge City government relationship efforts. This would include Small Business Advisory Committee meetings.
- Create a spring shopping guide. For reference, our winter holiday shopping guide is here.
- Amplify and create content for the CLF Community Membership drive.
- Bolster community engagement, specifically with students at Harvard and MIT by identifying channels for partnership.
- Prepare programming for May’s Small Business Week.
- Manage a #MyLocalYear campaign.
- Update our membership directory.
- Bolster CLF’s relationships with other independent business alliances around the country. In the past, these have included Portland Buy Local, Local First Utah, Spokane Independent Metro Business Alliance, Southeast Michigan Sustainable Business Forum, Stay Local New Orleans, and JP Local First.
- This internship is unfunded, and we encourage you to seek funding from your universities. We can work with you to identify funding streams at your universities.
- This internship is remote.
Required qualifications:
- Majoring in public policy, business, or a related field.
- Be willing to commit 10-40 hours per week.
- Have good organizational skills and a commitment to detail.
- Have good communication skills.
How to apply: Email a cover letter and resume to Theodora Skeadas (theodora@cambridgelocalfirst.org).
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